The fact-finding committee appointed by the state power regulator Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) to go into the issue large number of complaints of Adnai Electricity Mumbai Ltd. (AEML) of getting inflated bills has given a clean chit to AEML and said, the AEML has charged as per the power tariff structure approved by the MERC and blamed heat and humidity in month of October and average bills given by AEML immediately after taken over for consumers getting higher bills.

In August last year, AEML taken over the distribution of power in the city suburbs from Reliance Infrastructure and the consumers got higher bills which led to lot of public outcry and political parties joined and launched agitation against AEML. Subsequently in December last year, MERC appointed a fact-finding committee headed by former additional chief secretary A K Jain. The committee submitted its report to MERC earlier last week and it was published by the MERC on Thursday.

The higher consumption pushed a large number of consumers in higher slabs of consumption.

The committee in its report said, due to workers strike in last week of August and first week of September, metres of 4.35 lakh consumers were not read and they were given average bills based on average of last three months which included month of May which is hot and humid and also parts of June are also hot and humid before onset of monsoon and as this period of high consumption, consumer got bills of higher amount.

The committee also observed that, month of October was of high temperature and humidity and this led to higher consumption. The higher consumption pushed large number of consumers in higher slabs of consumption and higher the consumption slab, higher is the tariff which led to soaring of bills of consumers.

The committee pointed out that, the total consumption of AEML residential consumers in October 2017 was 366 million units, it increased to 414 million units an increase of 13% and similar pattern was observed across all distribution utilities such as Tata Power, BEST and Mahavitaran which supply power in various parts of the metropolis. It pointed out that, it increased from 175 million units in BEST area to 190 million units. In Mahavitaran area it increased from 44 million units to 46 million units. However, in the case of Tata Power it slightly dropped from 174 million units to 173 million units.

The committee said, higher temperature pushed many consumers in upper slab. The number of consumers for AEML in lowest slab that is from 0 to 100 units got reduced from 38% in September 2018 to 33% October 2018. During same period number of consumers who consume 100 units or more per month increased from 62% to 67% during same period.

The residential consumers are divided in four categories based on their consumption. The 0 to 100 units, 100 to 300 units, 300 to 500 units and 500 and above.

The committee also said, another factor which contributed to soaring electricity bills was issue of fuel adjustment charge (FAC). The recovery of previous FAC charges as allowed by the MERC led to increased bills for consumers.

However, committee censured AEML for relying highly on purchase of short-term power. The short-term power is a costly power and AEML sources 27% of its power through short-term sources compared to Tata Power which sources just 5%, BEST 15% and Mahavitaran 5%.

The committee advised AEML, “Sourcing of such large quantum through short term route would become costly affairs when rate in short term market increases. Hence, AEML needs to take steps to reduce its dependence on short term sources.”

The committee advised AEML to for automation and reduce manual intervention and take metre reading digitally.

The committee also asked AEML to be proactive and send warning to consumers when their consumption shows unusual patterns or abrupt increase.